RALEIGH, N.C. (March 7, 2014, 3:30 p.m.) – Line crews are working diligently to restore outages for 62,600 electric cooperative members in North Carolina. Counties experiencing the most outages are Davidson, Iredell, Orange, Randolph and Wilkes.

Outages have increased since this morning, as high wind continues to bring down trees and limbs which then must be cleared from the system before crews can reconnect power. The electric co-ops have brought in reinforcement crews in the hardest hit areas to restore power as quickly as possible. Still, restoration efforts will likely extend through the weekend.

Stay away from downed power lines because they can still be energized and therefore dangerous or even deadly. No one except a trained line technician should handle or be near a downed power line.